"O, you are so good," said she, "and I shall be so glad to go with you. I did not know what to do, but I had thought that if they got into the same cars with me on the next train, that I would speak to the conductor about them, or go out into another car. They had the impudence to ask me to take some liquor with them, and I do not think they were drunk." Their conversation had proceeded to this point, when into the ladies room boisterously came the two men. "Here's the darling," said one, approaching her, bringing cakes, etc., in their hands. "And you must take something with us." She declined, and turned her face away, when my friend said to them, "She doesn't want anything--don't trouble her." "Yes, she does, too," said one, and the larger of the men; "and she mustn't be bashful--must take it. See here, sis," said he, and placed his hand familiarly on her shoulder to turn her around; at which she shuddered, and gave my friend such a look that he couldn't control himself, "if 'twas in the ladies' room," and dealt the fellow such a blow in the face with his brawny arm--for though he was not very large, he was a Hercules in strength, and as skilful with his fists as a prize-fighter--as stretched him flat upon the floor. [Illustration: PROTECTING THE INNOCENT.] "This young lady is under my protection, and if you harass her any more, I'll break your head," said he, as the scamp "gathered" himself up, and looked for an instant at my friend, perceiving then, perhaps, that the plain-looking man, whom he had quite likely taken for a "common country fellow," was something of a genius in the art of self-defence, as well as that of offence, for my friend was on his "pose," ready to resist the attacks of the two. The scamps almost instantly decamped, and about this time the expected train arrived, and my friend led Hattie to a car. Into the same the two men came; but my friend, rising, and looking about at them as they passed back, and they perceiving him, they said something to each other, and turned about, and went into a forward car. My friend hoped that that was the last of them; but at several stopping-places on the road, one of them--not the one who got the blow--would saunter through their car, as if looking for some new in-comer, but evidently to feast his eyes on Hattie's beauty,--so my friend thought. After being well seated in the cars, my friend called to mind, that, not long before, his wife had heard from some of the relatives in Hattie's native village, with whom she kept up an occasional correspondence, that Hattie Newberry was engaged to a young man by the name of Dwight Phelps, a member of a quite wealthy family in that place; and he wondered if Hattie was going to New York to get "fixed up" for the marriage, for he knew that she had some relatives there somewhere, and his curiosity led him to inquire if she was going to stay long in New York.